Track B1 recorded and mixed by Rainer Robben at Audio Cue in Berlin between 09/09 and 01/10. Spastic Dementia is Marcelo Aguirre on drums, scream and guitar-like gutterals.

Track B4 recorded by Anthony Donovan, Northampton 2007.

Track B5, recorded by Bryan Lewis Saunders, TN 2009.

Complete Download Track Listing:

1- The Social Masochist - Music by Christopher Fleeger 2- Hide And Play Dead - Music by Michael Peck 3- PCP Poetry - Music by Joachim Montessuis 4- Subject In Question - Music by John Duncan 5- The Store - Music by Christopher Fleeger 6- If My Mother And I Were Monkeys - Bryan Lewis Saunders 7- Promethazine - Music by Joachim Montessuis 8- If I Was A Cat - Music by Christopher Fleeger 9- I Quit – Bryan Lewis Saunders 10- My Deepest Darkest Fears - Music by Kaontrol Kontraos 11- Near Death Experience - Music by Spastic Dementia 12- Methanol - Music by Kaontrol Kontraos 13- Brain Death - Music by Murmurists 14- Mercury - Music by Kaontrol Kontraos 15- The Meaning Of Life - Music by Tracy Lee Summers 16- Death Of A Loser - Bryan Lewis Saunders 17- TV Poetry - Bryan Lewis Saunders 18- Gibberish - Music by Joachim Montessuis 19- I Am A Vulture - Music by Joachim Montessuis

THE SOUND PROJECTOR REVIEW

Lastly we have the dark horrors of Near Death Experience Erratum Musical (EM006), an LP in a charred gatefold cover adorned with mirror-writing on the back cover and close-up photos of the extreme genius that is Bryan Lewis Saunders. While I’m still finding previous listen Daku quite an indigestible proposition, there’s a chance my ears can worm a way into this vocal fright-fest as I follow its oneiric, surrealist trails; although known for his viscerality, Saunders also likes to record himself speaking as he dreams and perhaps unlock secret chambers of the mind thereby, in fine Andre Breton style. Nevertheless the shouted and intense vocals on here, not to mention the overall accusatory and hysterical tone in which these toxic utterances are delivered, will make this LP a tough experience to sit through even for hardened fans of apocalyptic music. “I myself have only listened to it once on a great system in the dark”, reveals Saunders in an accompanying letter, in which he describes the release as a collection of “extreme autobiographical stories”. Where Daku featured Z’EV’s music, this one offers numerous co-creators, among them John Duncan and Marcelo Aguirre and five more, all of them contributing suitably sick and demented backdrops of unpleasant sound. Capable of generating extreme physical reactions in the listener, this record represents the sort of material that a wimp like me normally steers clear of, but I do respect the all-or-nothing qualities of Saunders’ performances; everything to him is truly a matter of life or death, with no hyperbole! A splendid presentation from this French concrete poetry label; purchasers of this item get a link to download the whole LP plus nine extra tracks as MP3s, and a PDF of texts. Like the man says, pure “PCP Poetry!” - Ed Pinsent

TSP20 2011

Bryan Lewis Saunders Near Death Experience FRANCE ERRATUM EM006 LP (2010) Arrgh! This is a horrifying record. Be prepared for some extreme psychological discomfort from these spoken-word pieces which are delivered with frightening passion and energy, along with some very unsettling musical backdrops. The voice parts are all the invention of Saunders and are performed by him; they could only be performed by him in fact, as they seem torn from terrifying fragments of deeply personal traumas which are too vivid for words. The musical parts are provided by a long list of guest collaborators, including Christopher Fleeger, M. Peck, and others named below. This is undoubtedly the most alarming and cathartic record I’ve ever heard and I advise listeners to approach with caution!

‘Social Masochist’ seems manageable enough, a bracing dose of physical pain and agony expressed in words, palatable to any fan of Butthole Surfers records from the 1980s. But then comes ‘Hide and Play Dead’, which starts off detailing childhood fears of persecution and abduction in harrowing detail; Saunders seems to crawl right inside your brain and probe the areas you don't want probed. The tone of the voice is verging on hysterical at the start, and it soon becomes more panicked and desperate as the scenario quickly turns into a complete nightmare of sickening child abuse. Yuk! I had to reach for the volume control; I couldn’t face hearing this.

‘Subject In Question’ is like a clinical report on symptoms of mental illness. Saunders reads it out relentlessly in his insistent voice as though he’s firing bullets at the listener. The tirade starts out insane and also follows the pattern of going completely bonkers in the middle of the track, laced with a stream of four-letter words, accusing God…all of this is too close for comfort, a graphic depiction of a life and mind on the edge. John Duncan provides the music for this piece, for which "dilemma" is nowhere near strong enough. On ‘The Store’, the simple act of going out shopping (misleadingly disguised as a simple text like something from See Spot Run) turns very nasty in short order, resulting in an escalating catalogue of theft, crime, violence, madness, scatology and child abuse. Bad things are all he sees, everywhere, all the time. The sound effects of the shop in the background don’t help; they only bring the nightmare closer to us.

‘Promethazine’ is pure body horror, incredibly rendered in words and sound in vivid ways that exceed anything that could be produced by a Hollywood torture-porn movie. Grotesque sound effects and music by Joachim Montessuis enhance the evil of this bad acid trip. I’m feeling nauseous. Can I face the B side? B1 is the title track which depicts another bad trip, this time detailing the unbelievable delirium and rush of unpleasant images with astonishing conviction. Philip K. Dick meets the Butthole Surfers on this cut with its aggressive percussion music and sneering rock guitars courtesy of Spastic Dementia. Amazingly, Spastic Dementia made all of those black metal guitar sounds with his mouth, and used 17 tracks of drums.

‘PCP Poetry’ begins as an alphabet of street names for PCP. Saunders barks them out to the accompaniment of a threatening buzzy drone from Montessuis, then flips out as he recites extreme horror stories of drug abuse and the unspeakable things people do when they’re on drugs. Unspeakable to anyone but Bryan Lewis Saunders, that is. I expect the reality is even worse than this, but not by much! "Crazy...one drug shouldn't have so many street names, not even weed," reports Saunders in an email to this magaizne. "That's what makes it so scr=ary to people's psyche I guess. It has nothing to do with crack, it is ALL about experiences with PCP believe it or not." Then for ‘Methanol’, he conveys the effect of actually being on drugs, with a performance and musical progression that (I guess) exactly matches the unstoppable rush of “huffing methanol” into the brain. The crashing reverbed noise by Kaontrol Kontraos is highly apt. This is actually about the most listenable cut on this strong and confrontational record.

That said, things start to calm down for the last two tracks. ‘Brain Death’ is another set of clinical catalogues straight from the hospital's emergency wing, a doctor reciting the circumstances of his own death to the tune of almost-beautiful cold and abstracted music from Murmurists. The last track is the monologue of a vulture, reminding us that not only will everything end in death, but also that our rotting carcasses are just more morsels of food for his ravenous beak. A fitting end to this grisly record whose abiding message seems to be that life is brutally painful and inhuman, so you decide to take drugs to escape it; then the drugs cause even worse things to happen, and then you die – and you find your troubles are only just beginning.

However, I don’t want to minimise the power of this extraordinary and shocking record. After a history of creating records themed on drug abuse, mental illness and institutionalisation, this LP confirms Saunders as a master of his own virulent brand of performance art. If acting is about “inhabiting” the character, then Saunders succeeds to an extreme degree, even if the characters are not ones you particularly want to meet!

YELLOW GREEN RED

Oh God, it’s this guy again. With his last album, spoken-word gremlin Bryan Lewis Saunders straight-up gave me hives with his in-depth polemic on bedbugs, and now he’s back, talking rapid-fire about scary topics that no one with clean hands and sane mind would dare to broach. He covers a wider swath of horror this time around, kinda drug-heavy, but still capable of making an institution as American and safe as “the store” sound like a Clive Barker horrorscape. Saunders loses me on the one track where he just alphabetically lists drug names (he’s far too cerebral to waste his time donking me on the head with a big list), but makes up for it with the variety of (non-)musical accompaniment on Near Death Experience, from the usual post-industrial detritus to what sounds like a Load Records band clattering away on their rock instruments in the background. Oh, and it’s a gatefold album with all the type reversed, further contributing to my vertigo. I probably shouldn’t own two Bryan Lewis Saunders albums – which one should I keep? Actually now that I think about it, I’ll just leave both of them here and move out. Bad juju like this is not to be toyed with. - Yellow Green Red (May 2012)